WE FLED to Nassau County to enjoy beaches and squirrels – and to escape the five boroughs.

Now, with the staggering rash of 33 home invasions by gun-toting mutts on Long Island this year, we are lurching toward being a sixth borough.

“Bad guys are following the good guys, but it is hard to explain that to the family who was terrorized at gunpoint in Plainview the other night,” said Denise Ford, a Nassau County legislator.

“Simply put, we need more police, not less police, like the county is now doing,” added Ford, the widow of hero firefighter Harry Ford, killed with two comrades in the Father’s Day fire of 2001.

Nassau County District Attorney Denis Dillon, who has consistently been praised as one of the best DAs in the country, echoed Ford loudly on the phenomena of home invasions on Long Island.

“This is a whole new thing, these home invasions,” Dillon said. “We have a very low crime rate because of the demographics of not being an extremely young county but a county that has two-parent families and stability. But demographics do change.”

And this challenge, which is getting to epidemic proportions, is happening at a time when Nassau County Executive Thomas Suozzi is, according to some, cutting back on cops to make a pretty budget.

“This so-called law-and-order county executive, Suozzi, tells everyone how he supports cops at this time of these home invasions,” said Gary DelaRaba, president of the Nassau County Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association.

“He has cut 200 cops this year. . . . There are gangs out there in Nassau County.”

Cops are looking at three gangs who could be responsible for this rash of bone-chilling burglaries and outrages against people’s homes: the homegrown Latin Kings, the MS-18, a Salvadoran gang, and “The Fat Guys,” a Manhattan-based mob.

To think these gangs are going to destroy my reverie on beaches and squirrel watching.

You wonder why law-abiding people want guns to ward off amoebas who take their money.